Emily Carver praises BBC star for ‘rebellion’ after presenter shunned woke autocue
GB News presenter Emily Carver has praised BBC newsreader Martine Croxall for what she described as a “rebellion” against autocue wording during a live broadcast on Saturday.
The moment occurred when Croxall, 56, was presenting a segment about heat-related deaths during Britain’s current heatwave.
The veteran BBC presenter appeared to take issue with gender-neutral language that appeared on her autocue, making a correction that quickly went viral on social media.
During the broadcast, Croxall initially read the phrase “pregnant people” from the autocue before pausing and correcting herself with a visible smirk and raised eyebrows.
Speaking about the viral moment on GB News, Emily said: “She was well irritated by that. I think I’ve had that before, where I’ve disapproved of how something was written in an autocue and thought, I’m going to correct that with a little bit of sass.”
Tom Harwood agreed: “Because it’s not just what she said, it’s the way she said it the slight smirk, the eyebrow raise.”
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Emily said: “It was a rebellion.”
Tom added: “I hope she’s not sanctioned for this, because I know sometimes the BBC can be a bit fusty. But I hope everyone can see exactly what she was doing. And I think she was probably speaking for a lot of people when she did it.”
Emily concluded: “So now she’s shot to more fame, hasn’t she? Overnight, I think all of this went very viral indeed.
“She’s welcomed her new followers on Twitter off the back of it. It’s all very amusing.”
Harry Potter author JK Rowling quickly praised Croxall on social media platform, declaring: “I have a new favourite BBC presenter.”
Rowling shared a video of the moment from SEEN in Journalism, which had captioned it: “Good to see accuracy on BBC News.”
The presenter received widespread support online, with one user writing: “BBC News presenter Martine Croxall refuses to say ‘pregnant people’ as she corrects the teleprompter live on air and says ‘WOMEN’ whilst rolling her eyes at what she was reading. At least there’s one BBC news presenter that has common sense. Well done Martine.”
WATCH: BBC’s Martine Croxall corrects pregnant people to women during broadcast
Croxall returned to BBC News last year after taking legal action against the broadcaster.
She had claimed she was among a group of employees kept off-air during a rebrand and returned following an employment tribunal.
The incident comes amid ongoing debate about gender-neutral language in maternity care. In 2021, a Brighton hospital faced backlash for implementing a “gender-inclusive language policy”, whilst a UK maternity bill changed “person” to “mothers” and “expecting mothers” after complaints.
When one commenter suggested she might “get hauled before the BBC News beak”, Croxall responded she was “braced” for potential consequences. The BBC currently has no specific policy requiring presenters to use the term “pregnant people”.